Web Hosting Guide

Both personal and business sites use blogging as a marketing tool. Smaller businesses and personal sites often use blogging software as their complete web site solution. They, in effect use it as a content management system or CMS.

If the primary purpose to your site is to offer blog posts to your viewers you may not need as robust a hosting solution as other sites. Your concentration is on your blog so you want to be sure your blog is available and fully supported. This is why it is important to find a reliable blog web hosting solution that will suit your needs.

Because blogging is a specific niche, there are specific features you should be concerned about.

What blogging software is available?

In order to blog you must have a software platform to work with. If you already have a site or use blog software, the important part is to make sure your new host supports the software you use and any ancillary features you may need to run it, such as MySQL databases. This will ensure you can move your website quickly and easily without losing any of your blog posts or functionalities.

If, however, you are new to blogging you will want to make sure your web host provides a variety of blogging software to choose from. Ideally, these should be available via one click install so it is available quickly with minimal effort.

Some of the favored blogging software platforms include:

• WordPress - This is the top rated and most popular blogging software available. It is highly customizable and there are free templates available for use. There are also many different add on features available for just about any purpose you can think of. The WordPress community is highly active and this can be beneficial for support as well as marketing.
• B2Evolution - This software is also quite popular and will accommodate multiple blogs, categories and sub categories and the ability to add or change the skin. You can customize this to your needs and is a feature rich solution.
• Nucleus - You can host multiple blogs, schedule posts for future publishing and set the look of the site to whatever you wish. It is a versatile blogging software solution that is popular with many bloggers.

There are other blogging software packages available. Make sure the one you choose is fully supported by your blog web host and that it provides all the features you want.

Uptime is necessary if you want to keep your traffic

It is critical that you ensure your web host has a good uptime percentage and a solid uptime guarantee to solidify their claims. The key to a good blog is to strive for plenty of users and that you encourage interactivity. If your viewers or customers find that your site is slow due to a degradation of service, or even worse that the site is unavailable for long periods of time due to unscheduled outages, this will leave your viewers frustrated. It won't take long before your viewers will go elsewhere and your traffic will die down. For web site owners that are monetizing their site, this can translate into hundreds or thousands of dollars in revenues lost.

Have a problem? Make sure your customer support is available when you need it

One of the advantages to the Internet is the 24/7 availability and the ability for people from around the world to access your site. This makes even a small business a global business, expanding their customer base. If something goes wrong, it doesn't matter what time it is. You are likely to have some visitors who are affected even if it is not during your peak hours. Are you willing to lose them? If not, customer support is essential.

You need to have a blog web host that has 24/7 available customer support to deal with issues as they arise. If there is a problem it will be identified quickly and fixed minimizing any downtime or slowing of the site. In addition, you may want to consider the types of customer service that is available so that you have as many possible options as is convenient for you. Some may include:

• Telephone support
• Email support
• Live chat
• FAQ or knowledge base
• Community forums

Make sure you get the best value

Price is always a consideration. You want to ensure that you are getting the best value for your money, which does not necessarily mean the cheapest. You should consider the price for all the features you will need but keep in mind you may not need all the features even cheap hosts offer.

To get the best value you should shop around. Make sure you compare prices from a variety of web hosts that offer the features you need. The good news is that many web hosts specializing in blog hosting offer reduced packages that are very affordable.